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Review
Abstract
Many famous individuals are said to have had epilepsy, and these names often nd their way into books and lectures on epilepsy.
The goal of this study was to investigate in detail the histories of 43 of those people who had various kinds of attacks, but not epilepsy. They range chronologically from Pythagorus, born in 582 BC , to the actor Richard Burton, born in 1925 AD . Epilepsy was
misdiagnosed in 26% who had psychogenic attacks, in 21% with attacks of anguish, nervousness, fear, agitation, or weakness; and in
12% with alcohol withdrawal seizures. In some instances no evidence of any episodic symptom could be found. One unexpected
nding was that 40% of these well-known, individuals had serious, often life-threatening, physical conditions as infants or very
young children. This article is an attempt to correct the record with respect to these people and also to remind us of the many reasons similar misdiagnoses are being made today.
2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Epilepsy; Seizure; Fit; Temporal lobe; Attack; Drug withdrawal; Psychogenic; Convulsion; Famous persons
1. Introduction
Many lecturers on epilepsy begin their talks with a
slide that lists a large number of famous individuals
who are said to have had epilepsy. This information often shocks the audience and does get their attention,
especially because so many famous people are mentioned. The goal of the present study was to explore in
detail the histories of many of these individuals, often
listed in texts on epilepsy and on the Internet as the very
famous who had epilepsy, to determine if they did, in
fact, have epilepsy.
3. Results
3.1. Pythagoras (582500
BC )
2. Method
The Internet was used to gather a large amount of
information on each individual, but books on each
1525-5050/$ - see front matter 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.yebeh.2004.11.011
Very little is known about this ancient mathematician, but at least we can state that there is no evidence
he had epilepsy. He was born on the island of Samos between the 50th and 52nd Olympiads, a common way of
designating ancient dates, and, therefore, around 582
BC . In conict with the government, Pythagoras immigrated to Croton in Southern Italy, where he founded
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BC )
BC )
Hannibal was the great Carthaginian general and leader of the famous march across the Alps. He was the son
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fast and pray with great devotion for those who suered.
Her rst encounter with voices and visions occurred
when she was only 13 years old. She believed she was
told to go into France, lift the siege of Orleans, and have
Charles of France, then deposed, crowned as King of
Rheims. During the occupation by the English the
crown of France had passed from the Dauphin, Charles,
to the infant King Henry VI of England. As a 16-yearold girl, she asked to join the forces of the Dauphin,
who agreed to her plan of freeing Orleans, which was
under siege by the English. Wearing mens clothes and
equipped with armor, she boosted the morale of the
troops and, with success, celebrated the victory over
the siege, becoming known as the Maid of Orleans.
Later, other cities were captured and Charles was
crowned Charles VII in Rheims in 1429. During the next
year, however, she was captured by the enemy, the Burgundians, who turned her over to the Bishop of Beauvais, who was allied with the English. She tried to escape
twice, and was accused of heresy. Her insistence on direct communication with God through voices was interpreted as communication with demons. She was charged
with 70 counts of sorcery and witchcraft, and was
burned to death at Rouen on May 30, 1431. Because
she was viewed as a heretic, her remains were cast into
the Seine River. Later, she was viewed as a martyr and
was beatied in 1909 and canonized as a saint on May
16, 1920 [9].
The possibility that Joan of Arcs voices and visions
were epileptic phenomena has been considered, but
clearly auditory and visual hallucinations are very
uncommon in epilepsy. Epileptic phenomena are nearly
always brief and primitive, like light ashes; the wellformed visions she described lasted hours, rather than
just a minute or so [10]. Thus, the extremely pious and
religious Joan of Arc likely experienced religious messages, rather than epileptic phenomena.
3.7. Leonardo da Vinci (14521519)
Leonardo was born in the town of Vinci near Florence, Italy, the illegitimate son of a wealthy lusty lawyer,
Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina [11]. At
20 years of age he entered the artists guild, but 3 years
later was accused of sodomy, a charge later dismissed in
the courts of Florence [12]. At times, Leonardo suered
from intense claustrophobia and also anxiety or feelings
of angst. Panic aected him occasionally like a low fever, an illness of the nerves that shook him suddenly . . .
and had spasms of furious sensibility when young pupils
behaved lightly [13]. These feelings are by no means
evidence of epilepsy. Another biographer [14] described
similar feelings as a paranoid strain that appeared suddenly at the end of a long period of failure and misery in
1487, like a nervous breakdown when he lost his grip in
the world of reality but with a quick recovery. After 5
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the biological father. In these circumstances, it is no surprise that King Louis XIII was high strung, moody, illtempered, and sometimes violent. Other accounts [23] of
his life indicate that he lived with the constant aid of
physicians who were successful in preserving his unstable body. He saw ghosts as a child, and so feared the
dark that he had attendants with him to watch over
his tardy sleep. He had no beard until well into his twenties and his indierence to females was extraordinary.
He started the fashion of wearing wigs by wearing one
himself to conceal his baldness.
Louis XIII ascended to the throne at age 9 after the
assassination of his father, Henri IV. His mother and
Cardinal Richelieu acted as his regents until he was 16
years old, when he took the reins of government. Under
him a powerful navy was built, the port of Le Havre was
modernized, and the development and administration of
New France were organized. However, there is no evidence of epilepsy in his history.
3.11. Jean-Baptiste Poquelin-Moliere (16221673)
Jean-Baptiste became part of a touring company that
performed plays and ballets and took the simplied
named Moliere in 1645. Moliere became a great playwright, and was responsible for the well-known Don
Juan, The Misanthrope, The Miser, The Doctor in Spite
of Himself and many other works. At the fourth performance of his famous play Le Malade Imaginaire he was
seized with a paroxysm of coughing in the nal ballet,
insisting on completing the show [24]. He was carried
home and died 1 hour later. The only similar comment
was that his health declines made him unable to perform on stage for months [25]. The nal moments of
his life were also described by another biographer: he
was seized with a convulsion while delivering the Juro.
He covered the mischance under forced laughter. Later
he had a murderous chill, then a paroxysm of coughing
and died soon after [26]. The terms seized and convulsion were used, but forced laughter and coughing covered up the episode in question and these latter events
are not consistent with epilepsy. In one other account
[27] the term seize was used for his last t of coughing
with blood streaming from his mouth.
3.12. Blaise Pascal (16231662)
Blaise Pascal was the third of father Etiennes children and his only son. At the end of Blaises rst year
he experienced a 12-month period of cramps, which
spontaneously disappeared. His sister, Gilberte Pascal
Perier, described the events: He screamed, kicked violently, and fell into a state of agitation. He had neither
pulse, nor voice, nor feeling, and became increasingly
colder; after a while he returned to his senses [28].
These episodes occurred when he was in contact with
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tened suicide when she and her father decided that she
should not see him anymore. However, Mary became
pregnant at the time his own wife Harriet gave birth
to a son Charles. Mary then gave birth to a tiny girl
who died within a few weeks, but she became pregnant
again and gave birth to a son, William. Marys sister
then committed suicide as did Shelleys wife Harriet,
mainly because she was pregnant from an aair with a
military ocer. Shelley then married Mary, who became
pregnant and delivered a daughter, Clare. In 1818 he left
for Italy where he became involved with another woman
(Claire Clairmont), who had given birth to Lord Byrons
daughter during the previous year and who then became
pregnant again, likely by Shelley. The baby was sent o
to foster care and died at the age of 2. During the same
year, daughter Clare died in Marys arms while Shelley
tried to nd a doctor. During the next year his son William died but son Percy was born. Stress took its toll on
Shelley, who at 28 years of age was described by his cousin as emaciated, stooping, and with grey streaks in his
hair. In that same year wife Mary became pregnant
again but suered another miscarriage, leading Shelley
to have disturbing recurring nightmares and hallucinations and to consider again suicide. Shelley could not
swim and on July 7, 1826, an afternoon storm sunk
his boat and he drowned. So ended the tragic life of a
great poet.
Most of Shelleys poetry reveals his philosophy, a
combination of belief in the power of human love and
faith in the ultimate progress of humankind. His lyric
poems are superb in their beauty, grandeur, and especially mastery of language.
3.26. Louis Hector Berlioz (18031869)
Hector Berlioz was born in France and experienced
strong emotions even in early childhood. As a child,
he would weep while listening to passages from Virgil,
and later these strong emotions played a signicant role
in his love life. At rst, his unrequited love for the Irish
actress Harriet Smithson represented a problem, especially since Smithson had been told that Berlioz was
an epileptic, if not actually psychotic [85]. His well-advertised romantic passion did nothing to lessen his reputation as a fundamentally eccentric and maverick
talent. After Harriet Smithson rejected him and accused
him of not loving her, he took an overdose of opium
[86]. Later he became engaged to Marie Moke, but
Mokes mother quickly married her o to a piano maker. Residing in Rome at the time, Berlioz planned to
ride back to Paris and, disguised as a chambermaid, kill
Moke, her mother, and also her ancee, and then commit suicide. He got as far as Nice, France, before giving
up the idea. He then eventually married Smithson, but
the relationship quickly fell apart. He frequently had a
frightful state of nervous exaltation so he could not
127
living because his own father violated tradition by making his younger son his heir. When baby Alfred was baptized, the Rector claimed, During three times after
convulsions he was thought to be dead. However, another authority claimed that the doctors told the Rectors mother that the ts were not epilepsy. Father
George, a man of violent temper, felt impoverished
and with a fear of mental illness in his family, his case
was made worse by excessive drinking, as was the case
of brother Arthur, whose alcoholism resulted in institutionalization in 1843 for 6 months. His brother Edward
had to be conned to a mental institution for most of his
life and Alfred himself spent a few weeks under doctors
care for mental problems in 1843. As one of Alfreds
brothers, George, was considered to have seizures, Tennyson was morbidly fearful of falling victim to epilepsy
or insanity. However, Levi made clear that no brother
had epilepsy [93].
Alfred visited a mental health sanitarium run by Dr.
Matthew Allen, who persuaded Alfred to invest in a
scheme that then went bankrupt. With little money,
Alfred could not marry and ended his engagement to
Emily Sellwood in the 1830s. Also, during that period
his closest friend, Arthur Hollam, whom he had met
at Trinity College, Cambridge, suddenly died. The deep
depression that followed required medical treatment.
Later in 1850, Tennyson married Sellwood. Alfreds
brother Charles had married Emilys sister Louisa, but
this marriage was unhappy, especially because Charles
was an opium addict, which caused his wife to have a
nervous collapse. Thus, Alfred Tennyson was surrounded with drug addiction and mental disorders and
he developed hypochondrical tendencies. His chain
smoking and a bottle of port, especially to overcome
shyness, did not help his condition. Although consumption of a whole bottle in one day did not result in outward signs of drunkenness or hangovers [93], Alfred
was known to go into long-lasting trances, especially
at the onset of a gout attack, but these trances were
the result of stimulation of his imagination, not a confused state, and were the clearest of the clearest [94].
This great clarity of mentation is inconsistent with epilepsy and without further evidence of any type of seizure, Alfred cannot be said to have had epilepsy. He
died in 1892 from inuenza and gout [95].
Even with such despondency, Alfred Tennyson was
productive and was named Poet Laureate in 1850. In
1876 he was honored with the rank of baron. His
world-class poems include The Charge of the Light Brigade, Sir Galahad, The Lady of Shalott, and Ulysses.
3.29. Robert Schumann (18101856)
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upon the brink of nothingness [125]. Although the etiology of these episodes is uncertain, they probably were
febrile seizures in infancy, especially because they were
never mentioned by any biographer [126128]. Pauli described him as a weak, sickly child and illness dogged
him in childhood, adolescence, and maturity [127]. A
weak spine forced him to lie on a couch for days and
he often suered from headaches, arthritis pains, and
cardiac spasms. Some doctors said he also had rheumatic gout and others called it gouty rheumatism
[126]. Toward the end of his life he was diagnosed with
advanced calcination of the aorta. Alfred Nobel had a
stroke on December 7 and died on December 10, 1896.
Alfred Nobel played a major role in previous, but
also present society. Early in his career he began experimenting with explosives and built a factory to manufacture the newly discovered liquid compound
nitroglycerin. Finding a safe way to control the explosives detonation, he invented the blasting cap in 1865,
and 2 years later his second important invention was
dynamite. It is perhaps an irony that in 1890 Nobels
physicians recommended that nitroglycerin be used as
a remedy for his own angina, but he declined it. Besides
explosives, Nobel was responsible for many other inventions, registering more than 350 patents in various countries. Today he is best known for the Nobel prizes, as he
left the bulk of his great fortune in a trust to establish
what came to be the most highly regarded of all international awards.
3.37. William Morris (18341896)
William Morris childhood was at rst happy because he was spoiled by everyone in his household,
but later he became temperamental and remained so
throughout his life. For example, he would throw his
dinner out of the window if he did not approve of
the manner in which it had been prepared. Those rages
were of concern to him. He was interested in all things
medieval, and his doting father actually bought him a
pony and a miniature suit of armor so he could pretend to ght a battle in the depths of nearby Epping
Forest. In 1853 he entered Exeter College, Oxford University, and met Edward Burne-Jones, who would become a business partner in artistic design, along with
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Morris married Jane Burden,
one of Rossettis models, but Rossetti then had a long
aair with Morris wife. Two daughters, Jenny and
May, were born to Morris and his wife. May became
the leading weaver in England, but May was diagnosed
with epilepsy. Because of his daughters diagnosis,
Morris wondered if some of his rages were a sign
of epilepsy. Thus, the evidence is insucient to diagnose epilepsy in William Morris.
Morris became one of the most brilliant and innovative progenitors of modern graphic design and can be
133
At age 19 Peter graduated from the School of Jurisprudence. His job in the Ministry of Justice was hardly
interesting enough to prevent his increasing absorption
with music. He was so focused on music that once he
absentmindedly tore pieces from an ocial document,
munching at them steadily, and, recovered his senses
only to nd that he had consumed the whole document.
Although one could try to make a case for a complex
partial seizure, this likely is the closest episode to any
type of attack and is not sucient evidence of epilepsy.
At 22 years of age he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music, graduated in 1866, and then began his
serious compositions. Ten years later Nadezhda von
Meck, widow of a wealthy industrialist, commissioned
Tchaikovsky to compose chamber music, continued to
support him for 14 years, after 1100 letters (!), but never
met him.
In 1877 he married one of his students (Antonina
Milyukova). He felt trapped by the relationship, especially because she was a nymphomaniac and he was
basically a homosexual, and attempted suicide by wading into the frigid waters of the Moscow River. Two
years before, he had an unsuccessful love aair with
the prima donna of an Italian opera company, Desiree
Artot. Even the happy summers spent at his sisters
house were spoiled by an overwhelming sense of guilt
when he fell in love with her son, young nephew
Bob (Vladimir) Davydov. Later, he had a sexual aair
with a male member of the royal family, and many
scholars believe that a small group of individuals convinced him that he must commit suicide and he did so
in 1893, either by drinking tap water known to be laced
with cholera or by drinking poison.
Bowen and von Meck [134] have described Tchiakovskys last hours before death [134]. Von Meck was the
widow of Vladimir von Meck, favorite grandson of
Nadezhda, who nancially supported Peter for 14 years.
Their claim was that the composer was very ill with
possible cholera and stiened in his rst convulsion.
During the night his suering increased and the convulsions were followed by helpless weakness before he
died. Convulsions just hours before death, from either
poison or cholera, do not establish an epilepsy. New
data show that injecting cholera toxin into a rat hippocampus induces a chronic epileptic focus [135], with the
main action on G-proteins and second messenger systems, rather than on synaptic transmission [136]. However, seizures from cholera hours before death do not
establish epilepsy.
Peter Tchaikovsky was certainly the greatest master
of classical ballet, and produced outstanding symphonies, great operas like Eugene Onegin and The Queen
of Spades, and was truly a great composer. He did
not, however, have epilepsy and none of four wellknown biographies [137140] mention the possibility
of epilepsy.
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4. Discussion
Pythagorus (582 BC )
Aristotle (384 BC )
Hannibal (247 BC )
Alfred the Great (849)
Dante (1265)
136
Fit of coughing
Breath-holding spells
Comparison to patient
with similar psychiatric
symptoms, who also had
seizures
Fainting, languors
(weakness), and
coughing
Menieres disease
Cerebrovascular disease
Gout attacks
Gilles de la Tourettes
syndrome
Dizziness and agitation
Psychogenic attacks
Illegitimate son (?) with
epilepsy
Kidney stones and
strokes
Fatigue and weakness
Psychogenic attacks
Fits of pain, nervous
attacks, and minor spasms
Fits of spleen and
psychogenic attacks
Probable alcohol
withdrawal attacks
Attacks of gout
Deep depression and
hallucinations
Painful renal colic
Weakness
Delicate young child, no
episodes of any type
Probable psychogenic
attacks and severe
migraine
Attacks of anguish
Migraine and probable
drug withdrawal
Febrile seizures
Rage attacks and
daughter with epilepsy
Alcohol withdrawal
attacks
Seizures near death from
poison or cholera
Hallucinations from
inhaling ether
Contrived amnesia
Alcohol withdrawal
seizures
Alcohol withdrawal
seizures
137
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